“Friday Fiction” Series: Living on the Third Rail, Chapters Nine through Eleven…
[Note from Steve: Wow! I just squeezed this in so that I didn’t have to add 2022 to the copyright statement! Happy New Year! Because this is yet another British-style mystery story, the metaphor of the title here refers to London’s Underground aka the Tube. Trains there, unlike NYC’s, actually have four rails with two live ones. The positive third rail is still outside the rails the car wheels ride on and has the higher voltage, which is twice the fourth with negative voltage, nestled between the two regular train ones. Now there’s a factoid that might stump any Jeopardy contestant!]
Living on the Third Rail
Copyright 2021, Steven M. Moore
Chapter Nine
“Guv, you look like road kill on the A1.”
Bobby squinted one eye at him. “I feel like road kill. Say, why do they call you Samaritan? I’ve heard that nickname bandied about here at times.”
“I don’t mind it. The Samarian area even now is dominated by Cohens. We’re all Samaritans.”
“I see. Good ones, I hope. I also hope you don’t mind my curiosity. It’s not often that I’m that curious about religious history this morning.”
Chaim smiled. “I’m getting some coffee from the canteen. I’ll get you some too. Where’s your mug?”
“On my desk. I’ll be there when you return. Join me, and we’ll bounce some ideas around about the case.”
Liz soon joined them with her tea and some biscuits. The two caught her up in the discussion.
“I’d say we’re doing all we can to find Jaeger and the child. We don’t know where to further canvass. The alleyway and tip isn’t where the four victims were killed. Jaeger could be anywhere in London.”
“If he’s here at all,” Chaim said.
“Where would you go?” Bobby said.
Chaim thought a moment. “Somewhere on the North Sea coast where I could take a ferry to the continent, or to anywhere in Scandinavia. Or Ireland, same for the west coast. Anywhere but here.”
“Without the jewels?”
“He exposes himself if he tries to recover the jewels,” Liz said.
“He might decide that he can always make another jewelry heist in Europe, but he can’t do that from the king’s boarding house.” Chaim led them in a sipping ritual. “I guess it depends on how greedy he is.”
“He should pay for his crimes,” Bobby said. “Here in the UK, where he committed the most serious ones, four murders.”
“Agreed,” Chaim said, “but maybe we should announce we have the jewels just to get rid of him. He wouldn’t have any reason to stay here if we did that.”
“True,” Liz said. “But I agree with Bobby. That bastard has to pay.”
Soon the whole team was in and they were hard at it again.
***
After many hours of frustration and many calls Bobby and Liz had made to other stations around the city, his CCTV team came up with the first sighting of Fritz Jaeger. They’d spotted him near the Bridge entering the Underground. They could switch to cameras inside the station.
“Where does that train go?” Bobby said as they watched him get on carrying the baby. “Anyone know?”
“It heads toward Southwark. Lots of stops along the way, of course.”
“Let’s try to keep him in sight. Should be easy with the baby.”
Southwark was the second most dangerous borough in London. They had eyes on the last few stations on the line. They saw Jaeger exit at one near the Guy’s and St Thomas Hospital Urgent Care Center.
“Maybe the child’s sick?” Liz said.
“We have him!” Bobby said. “Liz, have Hardcastle send a SCO19 unit. The bastard might be armed. Let’s go, Chaim. You’re driving. The rest of you, keep watch on the area and let me know if Jaeger does a runner.”
Normally it would be a forty minute drive even with the light afternoon traffic. Chaim made it in twenty-five with lights flashing and siren wailing forcing people out of the way. Bobby had to hold on as his DS wove in and around buses letting off passengers and lorries making deliveries. He thought Chaim might have taken a few corners on two wheels.
They parked, left the lights flashing, and entered emergency. There was no sign of Jaeger.
Bobby flashed his warrant card to the receptionist. “I’m looking for a man with a sick baby.”
“Name?” said the nurse.
“He’s probably not using his real name. He kidnapped the child.”
She blanched. “I-I think a man came in with a baby about thirty minutes ago. He must be in an exam room by now.”
“Which room?”
“I don’t know. One of the nurses took them to it. It’d be down the hall here.”
“You take the left side and I’ll take the right,” Bobby told Chaim. He turned to the reception nurse. “Call security and tell them to close all exits.”
“We don’t have enough security personnel to do that! Not all at once.”
“Can’t be done from your security office?” She shook her head. A security lapse. “Just do the best you can.”
They had each checked five exam rooms causing a few screams and curses when Chaim pointed along the corridor. Bobby looked and saw a man with a baby disappear out a fire exit, which set klaxons blaring.
“After him!” Bobby yelled over the din.
Chapter Ten
As they passed their patrol car, the SCO19 van pulled up. “Tell them to follow me,” Bobby said to Chaim. He kept running after the fleeing jewel thief, following him right back to the tube station.
His bum leg hindered him a bit, but his legs were longer than Jaeger’s. The thief didn’t take the escalator; he took the stairs instead, two at a time. Bobby’s leg was throbbing by that time, so Jaeger was halfway down the platform when Bobby arrived there.
Fortunately there was no train. Jaeger whipped around to face Bobby. He didn’t surrender. He kneeled instead, cradling baby Lorenzo with his left arm while his right hand held a knife close to his son’s throat.
“I’ll kill him if you come near me,” he said.
“You don’t want to do that, Fritz. He’s your child. Maria’s child.”
Bobby caught a glimpse of one SCO19 member at the far end of the platform with Chaim, the two others at the opposite end. Bobby knew he had to keep Jaeger talking while they tried to get into better positions.
“Why did you kill Maria? You must have loved her.”
“I did, I did! She wouldn’t tell me where the jewels were. Stupid bitch wanted them all to give her baby the best life possible. She used me.”
“And why did you kill the other three gang members?”
“Did that earlier. They were talking about killing us both and splitting Maria and my cut. We got them drunk and I ended those plans.”
He laughed as if that were the best joke ever on the telly. It was the laugh of a deranged person.
Bobby could now see that Lorenzo would be in the line of fire from the SCO19. He’d been inching closer as he and Jaeger had their chinwag.
“It might have been smarter to keep Maria and those three alive. Here in the UK you’ll get life in prison. Maybe four times over. Did you think about that?”
“I’m not staying here in the UK. I’m taking my baby and leaving. Do you understand? If you don’t give me safe passage, I’ll kill Lorenzo, I swear.”
“I don’t think you will. He’s your own flesh and blood. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? It must. He’s sick so you took him to emergency.”
“Sure. It means that Maria’s pills didn’t work, the stupid bitch! Or she stopped taking them to trap me.”
“Yet you let her carry the baby to term.”
“She had these romantic plans that we would have a wonderful life together somewhere. When I didn’t buy into that, she took the jewels, did a runner and came here. Where are they? I want them!”
At least he’d thought of the child first and the jewels last, Bobby thought.
“I don’t know. We’re still looking.”
He’d lied because he was afraid that Jaeger would lose it if Bobby said they were on their way back to Italy. He studied the thief’s position. Will it work again? He flexed his prosthetic. Maybe even easier this time!
“Then neither Lorenzo nor I have anything to live for.”
Bobby lunged, using his prosthetic hand to clamp down hard on Jaeger’s arm where the thief’s hand held the knife and his other fist to smash into the thief’s face. In the battle that followed, Bobby managed to free Lorenzo and push him aside. He continued to pommel Jaeger, even after they rolled off the platform. They just missed the negative rail and Jaeger tried to twist Bobby onto the third positive rail. The thief didn’t succeed.
He really couldn’t do much, in fact. There was no way he could unclamp that prosthetic unless he killed Bobby. That wasn’t happening. Jaeger was soon unconscious.
“Nice move, DI Sherman,” one SCO19 member said as he helped Bobby back onto the platform.
“Thanks. Let’s get some cuffs on that bastard. And get that baby back to the hospital.”
“We’ll need to get the man a bit of first aid too. Wouldn’t want him to appear at the Crown Court protesting about police brutality, would we? I’ll have to remember that move. Guess you figured the poor tot was in the line of fire?”
“I did. And I took down a Taliban terrorist that same way once, without my new prosthetic.” Bobby flexed its fingers. “I have a good reach, and my opponent rarely realizes how close I am when I attack.”
Chapter Eleven
“As good as an end to this case I could have hoped for,” Hardcastle told Bobby later in the DCI’s office. “It could have ended much worse, you know. Jaeger could have buried that knife in your gut, DI Sherman.”
The team was still partying down in the common area. Bobby figured they’d soon head for a pub. He nodded to Hardcastle and smiled.
“SCO19 had a bad shot, so I didn’t have much choice. I wanted to save the baby. Who gets him, by the way?”
“The aunt and uncle called once the case made the news. Baby Lorenzo will have a privileged life with them, I’m guessing. I hope it doesn’t ruin the wee lad.”
“And Maria’s parents?”
“They called too, before the aunt and uncle. They wanted to put the baby up for adoption, so that excludes them from being caretakers, especially here in UK courts.”
Bobby sighed. “That figures. It all went downhill when the parents kicked Maria out.”
He hoped that baby Lorenzo would never have to meet his grandparents.
***
Elaine Barton smiled as Bobby approached her. “I thought you’d still be with all those reporters,” she said as he took a chair.
“My DCI forced me to do a press conference. Imagine that.”
She opened her paper. “Ex-Afghanistan Hero and Heatherhill’s New DI Saves a Child,” she read. “Not bad PR, Bobby.”
“Um. I suppose they go into the whole mess as well as my whole life.”
“Indeed. You’re news, Bobby. Live with it.”
“Sometimes it will be good, other times bad. Tonight we’ll celebrate the good. What are you drinking?”
“G and T.”
“I’ll do a light ale.” He waved a hand to the waiter. “I’m a bit knackered but also peckish. I hope this place doesn’t put a pea in the center of the plate and call it dinner.”
“No, they cook up a good meal. I wouldn’t do dessert, though.”
“Why not? Too much food?”
She looked at him with a sly smile. “I thought I’d take you to my place. Those wounds look like they need some tender, loving care. And maybe I’ll be dessert?”
He reached out and touched her hand, a smile flooding his face. “Works for me, my lady. I’m not that knackered.”
***
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The trilogy that grew. The “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series became a trilogy in spite of the publisher of the first two novels…and then it grew. It’s still a trilogy if readers insist on reading print versions. The first three novels, Rembrandt’s Angel, Son of Thunder, and Death on the Danube, take one of the most unusual crime-fighting duos in the mystery and thriller genres from a wild, mature romance to a honeymoon cruise that will motivate readers to ask for more. And there is more!
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
